Creating Cadence Part 2

Hello Dears,

I made some great headway on Cadence this week, but first a tiny bit of news. For those of you who follow my Warcraft fan fic, "Straydog Saga" I've finally posted Flea 43. Go check it out via the "Ori's Fanfiction" link to your right. I've also got a few ponies in the pipeline that I'm making for friends and family for the holidays. Hopefully my left index finger doesn't fall off before then.

Anyway, here's part two of my multi-part plushie creation series "Creating Cadence":

Session 6: Tripod pony?

So I sewed all the accent slippers on the legs...just didn't manage to get them all on the pony that night. Still, Cadence had a nice roll of paper towels to lean on in the meantime.

Session 7: Fully stuffed, all legs on and wing planning

Hooray, Cadence can stand on her own at this point, fully stuffed and all. At this point, I was getting ready to sew the wings on, but it took staring at a few reference pics to get them at the right angle and placement.

Session 8: Eye can see you!

This may not look like much work, but hand-embroidering is THE MOST time consuming part of making any stuffed animal with hand-embroidered eyes. Its always a little bit of a crap shoot in getting these things on and even, but this time around I'm almost sad one of them is going to be covered with mane.

Session 9: Starting to look more like a pony now! One eye and one wing on!

 This unfortunate eye will be the one covered by Cadence's epically long and flowing mane. But her hair will be movable so it wont be covered up all the time. The pulling around the eye has also been corrected. I also used this opportunity to get a quick win: embroidered ear accents!

Session 10: Two eyes and two wings on, chest guard and crown planning

Both eyes came out really even, which I'm happy about. Both wings are on in the right place and at the right angle too. Starting to get the chest guard and crown in order here before I work on the technical marvel that will be her mane.

That's all for now dears. Keep an eye out for the third and final installment of Creating Cadence, which should be ready for you sometime next week.

- Ori

Creating Cadence - Part 1

Hello Dears!

I'm back from my trip to wine country -- Northern California -- and I feel amazing. I have a few news items to get out of the way before I move on to the purpose of the post. As some of you may have noticed, I spruced up the blog with some new graphics! I've also changed my commissions status and am working on providing some better pricing and portfolio examples of past commissions.  You'll also see the new "Buy Me's" section where my commissions and any for-sale items will be.

And now onto the real reason for the post! I decided to do a full progression for one of my plushies. Since Princess Cadence is my "me" pony I thought I'd pick her for my first ever "inside look" at the pony plushie production process (say THAT 3 times fast).  Since this is a rather lengthy process so I'll break the progression up into a series of blog posts.

 I'll be doing this by "session" or the 1 to 3 hours a night I set aside to doing plushies. I'll do 5 sessions per post with progress pictures! Lets get started shall we?

Session 1: Planning, draw and cut out the body bits

This part is pretty simple -- but I have to be careful not to make the body too skinny. I always make sure I cut around the line, leaving about a half-inch of fabric if I can.

Session 2: Sewed/embroidered the horn, ears, face, back, neck and front legs

I improved the pattern slightly by making the horn an inseam. The ears are always done first and then sewn in while I'm stitching the top of the head. Legs are always pretty easy and I could switch to using a sewing machine if I ever learn how to use one without sewing myself together...

 
Session 3: Dat tail...

This was a little tricky. I wasn't sure if I should make the ends of the tail curly embroider the curls later. My sanity thanks me for doing the latter. Its a tad short on the plushie but its perky and cute :) so I'm pleased with how it came out.

Session 4: Finished the legs base, started designing the wings, tail planning

At this point I usually sew on the legs and then the tail. But I opted to do the tops on the "slippers" first but I wanted to see how the plushie was coming together, and correct anything I needed to.

Session 5: Draw eyes on interfacing, sew slipper tops, sew in legs, sew wing, embroider nose and mouth

This took the better part of a Saturday. Slippers, for whatever reason, take me FOR-EVER The eyes were a little too Celestia-like but I was able to correct them and make them less narrow when it came time to embroider them on.

That's all for now dears. I'll see you in Creating Cadence Part 2!

- Ori

Bonnie Bell's Faeriecon Adventure

Hello Dears!

For those of you who were not aware, the every glittery and fanciful Faeriecon East recently occurred 2 weekends ago (I wanted to make this post sooner, but I'm headed to California for a week, so I had much to do before I leave!). Faeriecon, as you might have guessed, is a convention dedicated to all things fae and fairy (kind of the same thing really, oh well, semantics!)

Unfortunately, I was only there for a short time on Friday with a friend of mine, due to an ill opportune head ache (oh well, our girls night just started a little earlier, oh woe is me, wink wink.) But before our early departure we did manage to take a few good pictures.

Bonnie attended the convention, along with Lennard the fox pelt!

It was a gorgeous day, really nice weather, so while many of the vendors were still setting up, me Foxy Molly and Bonnie Bell decided to spend some time in the sunshine. We made Bonnie our fawny ambassador to the sparkly fae within. While we were waiting for things to be set up, we met some really interesting people, including a wizard!

"Please don't turn me into frog!"

Like the Renaissance fairs, you can expect to see some really fantastic costumes at Faeriecon, although, as expected, the focus is on fae, faries, and all things fantasy here. We were unable to attend, but they have the good faeries and bad faeries balls-- which, from what I hear are always a treat. There are panels from artists and figures in the scene, just like at any con, and just like most conventions there were vendors!

And at one such vendor, a lovely costuming booth from the Virginia-based FaerieWorks, was nice enough to strike a pose with Bonnie and me in my new set of faerie/Queen Crystalis wings!

Faeriecon gives you WINGS!! And small daffodil dear apparently...

You can check out what other goodies Faerie Works has at their website here: http://faerieworks.biz/ Though my time at Faeriecon was short this year, I did have a ton of fun with my good buddy there with me. Who knew deer and foxes could get along so well :)? Next time I'll have to include my squirrel friend in on the action and we'll be a posse of totemic goodness.

That's all for now, dears. I should mention though that little Bonnie Bell is looking for a home. If anyone is interested in taking her home, please drop me an email at: oriwhitedeer@gmail.com I just drew up a ton of new designs for graphics for the blog so brace yourself for tiny adorable deer doodles.

Well I'm going to be traveling on a jet plane, have a wonderful week, dears!

- Ori